Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This can't be real.

He had just spotted a flash of familiar, green hair, passing through the crowds. An unmemorable face paired with green freckles sprinkled liberally across it… 

Katsuki is terrified. 

There's no other word for it. His heart rate picks up, nitroglycerin drips down his palms, his hands start shaking… it's embarrassing, why was he scared of shitty Deku? 

Maybe, he thought detachedly to himself, it's because shitty Deku is dead. 

———

Four Months Earlier... 

Izuku is dead. 

He is certain of it. 

And that is why, currently, he is having a crisis. 

He is a 15-year-old, quirkless, useless nobody, and he should not be alive right now. One of the windows is floating in front of him, and All Might help him. He's too panicked about being dead to properly process what's being displayed in front of him. 

GAME OVER. 

New High Score!

RESPAWN? 

YES / NO

note - decision is irreversible

... what? 

I'm sorry, hold up a second. 

How...?

Okay, so maybe after a while he had gathered that the screens weren't exactly a commonplace thing. He quickly learnt a lesson about talking about the things he saw— Kacchan had burnt a reminder into his skin, hand-shaped and blistered. But… he was quirkless. He knew he was quirkless, but quirkless or not, people couldn't just respawn ! Once you died, you died , and that was the irreversible rule, save for a few very rare quirks… and even then they were along the lines of necromancy, and people didn't tend to retain their memories or personality—

Slow. Down. 

Breathe. Think, but stay on track… 

Izuku drums his fingers against his thighs, pent-up energy threatening to explode. He wanted to scream and kick and viciously attack a pillow or something, but that wouldn't help. He needs to think this through, be rational, be careful… 

He knows that he died, yeah, but… how? What led up to it? 

He takes a deep breath, and slowly recounts his memories. 

———

Midoriya Izuku is fourteen years old. He lives in a house with his mother, Midoriya Inko. She's the most wonderful parent he could ever ask for, if he ignores the slight twinge of anger… (She had been having just as bad a time as him. She didn't say the right thing, but it still wasn't her fault.) 

He loves katsudon and All Might and watching Hero battles… 

He used to have a Best Friend named Bakugou Katsuki, but he's not a friend anymore. He still calls Katsuki Kacchan, and Kacchan still calls him Deku (it's mean, but he doesn't show that the name bothers him). 

His life is a living hell. He is bullied relentlessly for not having a quirk. it's bullshit, to put it bluntly— like picking on someone for having asthma. Idiots, the lot of them. 

Kacchan… Kacchan is the main tormentor. But he forgives him, because Kacchan would surely be an amazing hero one day, and he can't risk getting in his way. 

That morning had been normal. Mostly uneventful. There was a hero battle, sure, and it was a debut fight on top of that, but that was all par for the course for Izuku. He didn't actively seek out battles, per se, but… he definitely saw a lot of them. 

After scribbling down his notes and sketching out a hero costume, he made his way over to his school. Aldera Junior High, the land of burns and cuts and scrapes, malicious words and uncaring teachers and… and it wouldn't be long until he got out! He'd be going to high school soon, and that meant… maybe his next teachers would bother to help him. He wasn't dumb enough to hope that he wouldn't be bullied in his next school. 

Oh, his next school! Yuuei! The top hero school in the world, if he was lucky there was a chance…! There was a chance he could get in, quirk or no quirk! And, well, he probably wouldn't be able to reach the Hero Course, but he'd settle for General Studies, no sweat! 

He would have preferred it if his teacher didn't single him out about it, though. 

He spent the rest of the day trying to melt into his seat and turn invisible. It obviously didn't work, of course, since he was cornered the moment the teacher left the room. 

It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before. Sure, Kacchan had never burnt his notebooks, but that was fine! It was a relatively new one, anyways, he could transfer the pages once he got it back—

"Why don't you take a swan dive off the roof?!"

Oh. 

Oh, that hurt. 

Kacchan…

You can't be a hero when you tell people to kill themselves, yknow? It could ruin your career.

"HAAAAAH!?"

Oh, shit. He said that out loud. 

Katsuki stomped over and shot his arm out, fingers gripping Izuku's neck. "You wanna say that again, nerd?"

The smell of burnt caramel made him nauseous, and he wheezed for air. A few pops sound out in the now- silent room, and all he can really think is oh, darn it. Now I'm going to have to wear a scarf for the next couple weeks. 

"Tch," Katsuki scoffs, throwing Izuku to the floor. "Weakling Deku."

And with that, he turns on his heel and stomps out of the room, lackeys following close behind. 

This wasn't the first time that he had knocked Izuku onto the floor and left him gasping for breath, and likely not the last either. He tended to go for the throat, like a rabid animal, and rightfully so— it was an effective tactic. 

But, well, maybe he should try to breathe properly again. That seems like a good plan. 

In, out. He knew how to block out the pain. In, out. He had been doing it for years, after all. In, out. But today… in, out. Today had been harder. In, out. There, see? In, out. He could breathe now without coughing! In, out. 

Keep it even. Keep it measured. Keep it controlled. Ignore the burning on your neck and the tears on your face. Stand up and move, because if you don't you'll get left behind. 

Izuku rises on shaky legs, supporting himself on a desk. He had to get his notebook, first. He knew that the information in them could be dangerous if the wrong person found them.. 

He wouldn't want that on his mind, not when he had other stuff to deal with. 

———

After pausing by the door to pull a scarf out of his backpack, Izuku had gone searching for his book. It was easy enough to find, but he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't at least a little insulted by the fish trying to eat it. 

Carefully lowering it into his bag, he keeps walking, kicking loose gravel away as he muttered. 

"Deku… I really am a Deku, aren't I? Kacchan is right, I'm pretty useless after all. But that doesn't mean he should have said that stuff, he could get into real trouble…!"

The only warning he had was a quiet rattling of the manhole cover, and suddenly he was drowning. 

With his wonderful reflexes, of course the first thing he had to do was breathe in. While he was drowning. He is such a colossal idiot. 

And the last thing he heard— "Thanks, kid— You're my hero!"— echoed in his ears before he slipped under. 

———

Izuku felt like throwing up. He probably wouldn't be able to walk under shadowy bridges alone ever again… if he got the chance, that is. 

This was such a mess. 

Chapter Text

[!] Chapter TW: (Brief) use of Homophobic Slurs

Izuku… didn't know what to do.

Well, okay, maybe not. There was, after all, a screen right in front of him with a very simple decision. To live, or to die. He's pretty sure he wants to live, yeah, but something tells him that the life he'll get when he returns will be… difficult.

He's also a bit busy having a crisis. Yeah, that's still happening. 

He can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that he died. And, hey, sure he can come back, but the point still stands! He died, suffocated , and—

PLEASE CHOOSE:

YES / NO

… yeah, okay. Even his Quirk was telling him to focus! 

Izuku took a deep breath, and reached out a shaking hand. He could panic about this later, he decided, and possibly do it around other people so he didn't spiral. 

A quick motion with his wrist, and he tapped the screen. 

———

The very first thing he recognized upon waking up was how fundamentally wrong everything felt, like he was breathing air where there should have been water. He supposed that it had something to do with the wrongness of him. People aren't supposed to be alive after dying, after all, so the universe probably decided that he didn't belong.

That's nothing new, I guess. I've never belonged anywhere. 

What was new, however, was the all-too-familiar corpse lying on the asphalt next to him. The skin had a blue tint, (oxygen deprivation, the flavor text told him emotionlessly) but it was still unmistakably him. 

His first instinct was to reach out and brush the hair out of its eyes. 

His second instinct, after his brain caught up with him, was to scream as loud as humanly possible and get the fuck away. Izuku backpedaled, slamming into brick or concrete or whatever material happened to be behind him, that doesn't really matter right now, that's my body what the fuck. What the fuck? What?? Wh—??? 

He had to run. 

He scrambles to his feet, slipping on some strange green substance, and books it. He takes off like a shot and sprints, he needs to leave and it needs to be now and he can't think straight, just get out get away get far far away he can't think straight or breathe properly and he just needs to leave. 

Soon enough, his legs start wobbling and his lungs burn, being pushed far above his limit. It was fairly likely that he was being fueled by adrenaline alone, and he could say for a fact that he felt like collapsing. 

But now that he was forced to slow down, his mind started to calm. Of course, he was still spiraling because not only did he have a Quirk, (something he had been actively ignoring for the past ten years, gosh that was just starting to sink in ) he had literally just died. And subsequently revived.

What the hell.

He took a deep breath before scrubbing his face with his hands, sighing. What did this mean for him? What was his future like? Could he even register his Quirk this late…?

Speaking of his future… 

Izuku paled. He had just left behind a corpse. His corpse. Somebody would find it sooner or later, and when they did, Midoriya Izuku would be pronounced deceased. Oh, shit. People don't come back from the dead. Would anybody believe him? Would they just think that he's got a shape shifting quirk? What if they arrested him?! No! No no no that would be horrible!

He had the sneaking feeling that he... 

I don't want to go back. 

How would everyone react? His mom would be heartbroken, sure, but she could survive. (A deeply buried part of himself almost wished she would feel a little pain. After all, it wouldn't be nearly as much as Izuku had to endure) And… 

He didn't know that many people. Huh. 

The kids at school… would they care? Would anyone notice that shitty Deku was gone? His bullies would miss their punching bag, of course, but… 

How would Kacchan react? Would their childhood mean anything to him? Would he care? Would he get mad?... Was there even the smallest possibility that he would feel guilty…? The last thing he had told him hadn't exactly been stellar, after all. Only now, Izuku noticed that… he didn't really matter. Barely anybody knows him, barely anybody would mourn. He'd just be another face in the endless sea of people who died every day, and—

"You're getting on my fucking nerves, you little bitch! I told you already to give me your fucking wallet!"

Well, then. Apparently the universe didn't like him being an existentialist. Hey, maybe it wasn't the best of news to hear somebody getting mugged, but it pulled him out of his spiralling thoughts—

Wait. 

Wait, somebody getting mugged? 

Oh, shit.

"You'd really think that you could do better than me, you know. Preying on little kids… how inappropriate," A voice that sounded eternally tired responded. Izuku crept towards the two voices, cursing his non-existent luck and overly-heroic instincts. I already died once, I don't think I want to set a record. 

"I'm not here for your ass, you fag, just give me your money!"

"Touchy…" The younger voice whistled, 

He rounded the corner, freezing when his eyes landed on the pair in the alleyway. He has a knife, was all he manages to mutter out before the mugger hissed, 

"That's it! "

… and the knife-hand was moving towards the teen. Oh, shit.

"Hey!" , he screeches, jumping towards the two. He body-slams into the guy with the knife, and grabs onto it. Dumb move, since his hand closed around the blade. " Run, you idiot!"

Aforementioned idiot was gaping at him like a dying fish on land. Izuku took the opportunity to take in their appearance. He had wild purple hair, and pits of pure insomnia underneath his eyes. Yeesh. Take a nap, dude. Now purple-hair was now looking vaguely amused, on top of thoroughly terrified. Ah. I said that out loud, again. 

"Yeah, and I'm going to book it. Please don't die."

Izuku pales once again at the thought, before turning back towards a very angry man. They yanked the knife out of his grip, slicing his fingers, and growled at him. Literally growled. He didn't even have a mutation quirk, what the heck? 

"Who the hell are you?"

"Uh, j-just, y'know. A kid who can't… can't stick to his own b-business."

"You're fucking right about that, you twerp…" He spat, lunging for Izuku. He wasn't fast enough to dodge, and the blade sunk into his gut. The pain response was immediate— he coughed, tears springing to his eyes. Izuku glanced down at it and then stared back up at the mugger, quipping through the sharp pain. 

"...Y— You want this back…?"

" What the fuck? " was all the response he got, before he slammed into him with a shoulder, pushing past and sprinting deeper into the alleyway. 

———

He'd been running for a while, now, and at this point he was pretty sure that he'd either lost the guy who'd stabbed him, or he hasn't been followed in the first place. But, by extension, he was lost as well. He was starting to feel really cold, too. That probably wasn't the greatest sign, to be totally honest— didn't your body temperature drop with blood loss? 

Now that the fight-or-flight adrenaline response had worn off, he was really starting to feel the knife in his stomach. Not something he enjoyed, but really, he doubted anyone would.

If he was being completely honest, he doubted he would survive this. He didn't want to lay down and give up, but he knew, intellectually, that he'd be fine in the end and he would probably be better off speeding the whole process up. 

Whoa. Dangerous thoughts, nope. Don't you dare. 

What he should probably do now was find someplace secluded, so that he didn't just pop into existence in the middle of the street. The block was middle class, at his best guess, so he would be hard-pressed to find an abandoned building. Izuku supposed that an empty alley would be the best he was going to get for now, so he set off to find the emptiest one possible. 

Well isn't this awfully cheerful, he thinks ruefully to himself as he glances into narrow streets. I'm searching for a place to die… At fifteen years old. 

Izuku sighs, turning off into an alleyway. Stumbling in, he closes his eyes. 

Chapter Text

When he opened them again, he couldn't see. 

Maybe it was just too dark, or maybe he'd just gone spontaneously blind, Izuku didn't know. But the most obvious and likely possibility was that he was dead. 

Again. 

But, as he glanced around, he couldn't find any screens. That's strange, he hums, last time the respawn screen showed up automatically… 

Maybe I have to wait? 

And so he did. He floated there, suspended in nothingness, as he fought off tears that were threatening to burst out of his eyes. That was another thing that was weird…  he rarely ever cried, and even then he could ignore the urge and force himself to keep smiling. 

You're fine, he repeats to himself, you're alright. Be logical— you'll be alive again soon enough, you don't need to panic. 

But as his internal clock slowly ticked away, he couldn't manage to fight off the bone-chilling anxiety that was steadily settling in, and started to gasp. His lungs just weren't working. Oh, it would be fine soon, he supposed. Sometimes this happened, it would only take a couple seconds to pass before his regained his composure. 

… But it didn't. The terrible, pressing weight on his chest remained, stealing away his air and slowly upping his panic as spots danced in his vision.

A few tears slipped out of his eyes. What was happening? This wasn't a side effect of his Quirk, was it? Because hehadcertainlyheardofsideeffectsbadenoughforthistobeconsideredonebutitdidn'tseemquitelikethatwhichwasprettyweirdbut—

Izuku wheezes, swapping his quirk-oriented thoughts out for far more fearful ones. 

I can't breathe, why can't I breathe? Shit, is there no oxygen here, why is this happening, can I die for real, could I suffocate here, am I going to actually die am I actually dead maybe that's why there aren't any screens maybe I'm actually dead and I'll never be able to see my mom again, fuck, fuck! I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't, I don't I swear I don't, don't let me die don't let me die please don't, please—

A soft chime sounds out, cutting through the quiet noises he makes as he struggles for air. Though his panic reduces, he still chokes, vision swimming with unshed tears as his gaze connects with a glowing blue screen. 

GAME OVER. 

RESPAWN? 

YES / NO

note - decision is irreversible

"God— yes," He sobs, swiping at the screen.

———

Respawning this time was an incredibly unpleasant process. Unlike before, he could feel the bones clicking against each other,  tissue slithering back together and twining into powerful muscles, skin crawling across his raw body and stitching closed to protect himself.

It wasn't exactly painful, no, it was just... unsettling , like feeling yourself be atomized in reverse. Something odd that he hadn't noticed with his previous body (still horrifying to think that he'd died) was that his skin was very sensitive- everything he touched felt far rougher than it should be. 

Something equally strange was that after his body had put itself back together piece-by-piece like a lego set, his clothing began to regenerate (duplicate?) as well. It was… unexpected, at the very least, but not unwelcome. He quite honestly did not want to strip his corpse for clothes, as it would be both incredibly uncomfortable…  and look very wrong to anybody who might pass by. 

Brushing away the remnants of tears, Izuku took a deep breath and shook out his arms, trying to shake off the lingering feelings of hopelessness. Now that he was back with light and gravity, he felt much more grounded. Perhaps that was what happened , he frowned, my emotions might be amplified or uncontrollable in that void. 

Taking a quick breath, he slapped his cheeks, shocking focus back into himself. There were things to do and bodies to hide, so he should get his shit together. Focus, focus, focus , Izuku!  

And, well… he couldn't really think of what to do with his most recent corpse. It certainly wouldn't do to just leave it there like the first one, because that would create a bit of a problem. People don't die twice, after all, and seeing another body of the same person who'd kicked the bucket less than a day earlier… 

It'd throw the police for a loop. 

Actually, that could be pretty funny to watch! He just… didn't have a way to watch it, and… 

FOCUS!!! 

There is a body. A body right next to you, and you need to hide it before somebody else sees it. 

He glances around the dingy alleyway. The only options he really had right now was to either ignore this whole situation and leave, drag the (his…?) body further into the alley, or… dump it in the trash. 

God. This felt so wrong. He wanted to run, but he couldn't just leave… so just focus, and get it into the stupid trash can.  

Shuddering, Izuku loops his arms under its shoulders (it wasn't alive anymore. It wasn't a person) and drags it over to an open trash container, one of the huge metal ones. Why it was here, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to complain. 

He huffs, preparing himself to lift the dead (HAH!) weight. "One…  two…"

And with a swinging motion, he lifts the body over the edge and into the trash, making far too much noise in the process.

Izuku freezes as the metallic clanging rings through the narrow space, senses suddenly on high alert. " Shit— !" he hisses, turning on his heel and sprinting down the alley. 

He didn't see when somebody with a head of violet hair searched for the source of the noise. 

Chapter Text

He knew when his mom would be leaving for work. When the house was empty, he slipped on his mask and ascended the complex's stairs, praying to every god he knew that nobody would catch him. 

It was fairly easy to get into the apartment, he still had a key, after all. From there, it was a simple matter of grabbing a couple outfits and new shoes. But to his dismay, he didn't have a single pair of extra shoes. 

Darn his insistence to wear red attention-seeking boots. 

He didn't take anything that would be missed, and as an afterthought swiped his Hero Analysis books off the shelves. 

That seemed good, he supposed. He got his clothes, and books that could honestly be dangerous. Information was very important in fights, after all. 

That was all he needed. 

Now all he had to do was run for the hills. Don't look back. Never think about his family ever again. 

… he couldn't do it. 

He was selfish . 

Being alive is hard when everyone you know thinks that you're the exact opposite.

In the logical, buried part of his brain, he knew that this was a bad idea. A terrible one, in fact— it would hurt her so badly if she recognized him. But that was why he'd wear a mask , he reasoned with himself! 

That's not much better. She'd just think she's being stalked if you do that. 

Oh, shut up, logic. 

It had been a week or so since he'd promised himself he wouldn't contact anyone who used to know him. Well, he wasn't very strong-willed against things like that, so sue him. Maybe he just wanted to make sure that nobody had died but him! 

(And maybe he could haunt Kaachan. That would be funny.) 

If he wasn't lying to himself, he'd know that he was really doing this because he missed everybody. Yeah, he didn't quite miss the burns and bruises from the hands of Kaachan, or the negligent attitudes of his teachers, or his perpetual loneliness… 

But he missed the safety. The routine, the food, the comfortable bed… things you couldn't easily get when you were essentially homeless and possibly a vigilante. 

He wasn't sure if he counted. He hadn't used his Quirk for anything past reviving once, and hadn't actually attacked anybody yet. Just distracted them from their targets, really! 

Izuku fidgeted with the wooden kitsune mask he had swiped from a store. It wasn't moral to steal, he knew, it was just… he couldn't afford it. And he really, really needed something that covered his whole face. 

It was a sturdy thing, could probably take a few hits. He knew that it wouldn't be helpful for anything past hiding his identity, however, so he shouldn't trust it to protect him from anything. 

His voice would still give him away. He knew that. He knew that he was being sentimental and dumb . He shouldn't bother her. 

But that didn't mean he couldn't keep her safe. 

———

When Midoriya Inko returned from her office job, she didn't take a second look at Izuku's room. Why would she, when it just brought back memories of her baby? 

But if she did, she'd realize that the door was just barely cracked open and the room was missing a few important books. 

Chapter Text

Katsuki, to put it bluntly, felt like shit. 

He could barely summon the energy to wake up most days, his concentration in class was slipping, and his reputation was all but gone. 

Because the therapist his parents forced him to talk to had pinned him with a laundry list of mental shit that he most definitely did not have.

Because no longer was he 'Going-to-be-a-Hero' Bakugou, now he was 'Told-that-kid-to-die' Bakugou.

Because he could barely sleep at night with all the nightmares he kept getting, ones with echoes and ghosts of shitty Deku, ones where he kept calling out his name to his back and where he'd never respond, and when Izuku finally turned around all he could see was blue, blue skin and empty eyes and—

And it sucked. Big-time. 

But he'd been lucky. He knew that if the nerd had actually thrown himself off a building, Katsuki would have been in deep, deep shit. But a villain had gotten to him first. So at the very least, at the very least his record was clean and he still had a shot at getting into Yuuei. 

Yet he wished, oh, he wished for so many things. 

He wished that he had never thrown the nerd's book out the window (he wouldn't have been caught by the villain if he just took the normal way home). 

He wished that All Might had gotten there fast enough (apparently, the coward had left as soon as he called emergency services).

He wished that he had never abandoned him (maybe if they were still friends, Katsuki could have protected him). 

He wished that he hadn't burnt his neck (if he wasn't already having trouble breathing, he could have fought longer.)

He wished that he had never followed the ambulance to the school (because all of his dreams had flashing lights and medical gurneys and AEDs and breathing masks—)

Bakugou Katsuki was a very, very regretful person. 

———

It almost broke him when he saw people with green hair, now. 

Usually, when he felt like this, he would start shouting and screaming and exploding things… but most of his rage had been drained away during the past two months or so. Now, he felt like collapsing onto the ground and passing out. 

He didn't want to be angry any more. 

Katsuki turns away from the oh-so-familiar-looking head of green hair, staring holes into the ground and counting his breaths. In for 5, hold for 6, out for 7. Just like his therapist taught him. 

As much as he hated to be told what to do, he had found the breathing exercises to be… surprisingly effective. Maybe the old hag was right about something for once in her life. 

After the urge to light up the sweat gathering in his palms had passed, he shook them out and tried to get rid of the excess nitroglycerine. Recently he'd realized that maybe his Quirk wasn't as much of a blessing as he originally thought. 

It was dangerous. He was dangerous.

It was his fault his fault his fault all his god damned fault—

He was going to make up for it. He had to, his fucking pride wouldn't let him do anything else. Katsuki had already decided on being the Number One Hero, but now… he had to do even better than that. 

He could just blast his way to the top, but brute force… though it had worked before, he… didn't want to just blow things up. 

Maybe he could take a page out of Midoriya's book… and be a little nicer. He wasn't naïve enough to think that he could become a little angel. He was too pissy for that. 

No, maybe he could just scream less. Think more. Stop attacking everything that moved. 

———

"Bakugou, come on! We barely hang out together any more, I want to do something with you! Show some weak-Quirked losers who's boss, you know?"

"Yeah, dude. Ever since Deku kicked the bucket, you've been acting like some kind of wuss—"

"You extras don't understand that Deku was the only one worth beating up in this shithole of a school," Katsuki snapped, "or maybe you're having too much fun acting like needy girlfriends to use your shitty brains!" He punctuated his shouting with sharp crackling, before turning heel and stomping away. 

"Tch. You've gotten boring. Don't talk to me again, you fucking wimps, unless you want me to blast you to kingdom come!" His 'friends' at school thought that he was being weird. Well, fuck it. Who needs 'em? 

Katsuki certainly didn't. He hadn't had a single actual friend for ten years, and now the only one who used to have his begrudging acknowledgment was dead. 

Bakugou Katsuki was a very, very determined person. 

———

It had been several months since he had ditched his old friends. Katsuki had spent most of that time training at a trash-filled beach, far away from where other people would want to be. 

The less people around who could hear his screams and stare at him, the better. Though he swore that there was always somebody else there, he could never be sure. 

He tried to shake off his nightmare visions of Izuku, dead but walking and watching him. He could never escape, no matter how hard he ran . 

He was just walking home from the store, toting bags of produce with him, when he spotted a flash of familiar green hair passing through the crowds. An unmemorable face paired with green freckles sprinkled liberally across it… They turn to look directly at him. 

And suddenly, Katsuki is terrified . 

There's no other word for it. His heart rate picks up, nitroglycerin drips down his palms, his hands start shaking… it's embarrassing. Why would he be scared of shitty Deku ? 

Maybe, he thought detachedly to himself, it's because Deku is dead. 

———

He wasn't sure what he had been doing outside without a mask. It was dumb, so dumb. Somebody could recognize him and then the cops could re-open his file, start an investigation… 

He didn't want anybody to link him to the name Midoriya. His mom wouldn't be able to handle the stress if they told her that there was a chance he was still alive. 

So you could imagine how much he was mentally bashing himself when he turned to make direct eye contact with his number one tormentor. 

(Although he couldn't tell you he didn't get a kick out of how Katsuki started shaking like a leaf.) 

Izuku turned tail and ran. 

Chapter Text

Player Name - Midoriya Izuku

Level 13

Health 117/120

Stamina 103/125

< > Strength 22

< > Agility 25

< > Perception 32

< > Processing 19

Excess Points 0

     + Effects

     + Skills

     + Trader

     + Inventory

It had been… four months since he'd first been forced to acknowledge his Quirk. Currently, Izuku was exploring the Menu aspect of it. 

His newly-named Virtual Reality Quirk was extraordinarily versatile, and it was extremely fascinating. He was simply itching to push it to its limits, but he knew that would most likely end up with him back in the void. He never enjoyed his time there. 

In the months that he'd been legally dead, Izuku had achieved a few things. One, he had found a sheltered place to sleep (AKA an abandoned warehouse that miraculously had a working hose outside that he used for cleaning himself and his clothing. It was drafty and uncomfortable, but he didn't need comfort). Any time he needed WiFi to do something, he walked to the nearest cat café and leeched off of theirs. There was a purple-haired boy there who seemed downright terrified of him, but he never discovered why. 

Two, he'd gotten past the moral hurdle of stealing from criminals to get money to buy groceries and other essentials such as cleaning products (it wasn't very hard).

Three, he'd done his best to scrub any photographic or visual trace of Midoriya Izuku off of any and all servers (police or not), starting with the oldest documents and working his way up to the more recent and up-to-date ones (coding had been suspiciously easy to pick up). 

He managed to create a new identity as well, but couldn't promise it would hold up under scrutiny and was very, very suspicious, but it would work.

He'd decided to start going by Midori Mikumo. Originally he had considered using his father's name, but something about it just didn't sit right with him, as well as it being a bit too obvious. And yes, maybe he had shaved the end of his last name off, but he liked Midoriya! If Americans used colors as names, he could too. It wasn't very likely that somebody would connect him to a dead kid, after all. It wasn't as though he was actually hiding the connection, though. If somebody figured it out, props to them! They figured out the dead kid wasn't actually dead! 

And four… 

He'd been a fucking idiot to ignore this for practically fourteen full years . 

In the short time that Izuku had paid actual attention to his Quirk, his level had more than doubled once he started actively trying to raise it. Raising his level meant that he could upgrade his stats. 

Izuku could jump five feet straight into the air now from a standing position. The boost it gave him was ridiculous! That's ignoring the fact that he could analyze villains and heros much faster than normal if he focused! 

So, basically, he was a very stupid person and his quirk was cool as all hell. 

Now he just had to raise his level a bit more, and he'd found that the easiest way to do that was to beat up people. Of course… he only picked on common thugs. Nothing too dangerous. He'd just made a few dumb moves sometimes, that's all…  (ignore the 10+ times already that he'd managed to kick the bucket. It was a learning curve)

Izuku had a feeling that today would be fun. 

———

Aizawa's day started like every other. He was still awake when the clock struck midnight, and by 3:00 in the morning he was groggily opening the apartment door to be greeted by one of the many cats that had taken over his home. 

After stumbling onto the severely lacking mattress that he called a bed, he managed to sleep for a good four hours before being woken up by unholy screeching coming from the balcony door. 

He dragged himself out of bed, kicking open the door to let some more cats in, and then by some miracle managed to make coffee before he collapsed. 

All in all, this was one of his better days. 

As he pulled out his barely-charged phone, he couldn't help but feel some ominous sense of foreboding. Get a hold of yourself, Aizawa, he scolded himself. Superstitious nonsense is not logical . 

His suspicions were confirmed when he opened up his phone and the very first thing he saw was an email notification. More work, of course . As if he didn't already have his hands full with (admittedly lacking) teaching and midnight patrol shifts. 

Apparently Tsukauchi had requested his presence at the police department to discuss a new case. Well, at the very least he knew that the detective wouldn't call for it unless he was needed. 

Downing his mug of coffee and pocketing some beans to snack on later (god knew he'd need the extra caffeine), he bid farewell to the felines brushing up against the table legs and stepped out the door. 

———

"There's a new vigilante making rounds."

"You called me out here for a vigilante? "

"Eraserhead, they're suspected to be behind a serial murder case with most likely civilian victims."

That shut him up. A vigilante killing people? Certainly wasn't unheard of, no, but usually it was villains and occasionally heros. He was a bit interested, sure, but Tsukauchi could have just sent him an email or something instead. 

"Victims all appear to be male, aged somewhere between 13 and 15, with remarkably similar features. No victims have been ID'd yet. Body count is at 11."

"The vigilante has been named 'Player' by all criminals they've apprehended. We aren't quite sure why, yet, but we're using the moniker. Player has been identified to be about 5"6' with green eyes and hair. They're suspected to have a minor physical enhancement Quirk, as they've been recorded moving at accelerated speeds and demonstrating strength that shouldn't be possible with their physical build."

"... Hm." Seemed easy enough. Find the vigilante, grab them, drag them over to the station. "I should go now. Vigilante to catch, and all that." Aizawa drifted out the door to go home and make more coffee. Maybe get in some sleep before going on patrol. 

———

This was not fun, realized Izuku as he sprinted away from three particularly nasty thugs. They had been in the process of mugging somebody, and he'd meant to just jump one— test out new applications of his quirk, and whatnot. What he hadn't expected was the two other men.

So now he was running, trying to outmanoeuvre them. He knew when he had lost— chances were, he wouldn't be able to get away for long, so his plan was to lose them for just enough time to store his mask in his quirk and dive off a building. The impact would be able to mess him up pretty bad. 

He couldn't have anyone realize what his face actually looked like, after all (and just disregard the nature of his most common escape method— he barely got nauseous anymore when he saw his corpses!). 

He scrambled up a fire escape, hauling himself a precious few floors higher. The higher the fall, the quicker the death! ( he'd be fine he'd be fine he'd be fine )

Izuku tripped over his own feet, nearly faceplanting as a loud clattering appeared behind him. The noises of pursuit disappear for a few blissful seconds.  

It was stupid of him to let his guard down.  

He barely had a warning before there was a clattering of metal behind him, just the whistling of air caused by a fast-moving object. Luckily, Izuku had moved just in time, and the scarf-like object slammed into the fire escape's railing. 

ITEM: [ Capture Weapon ]

OWNER: Aizawa Shouta

Made of carbon fibers and a special metal alloy, it is most often used to immobilize opponents with strong quirks.

Nerves thoroughly frayed, Izuku clambered onto the roof, ready to make a last-ditch dive if need be. 

"Eraserhead!" he called out, trying his best to sound confident. "S-so, are you hunting for me, or am I just... L-lucky enough to meet you during your patrol...?"

The answer was obvious, though. Eraser usually operated during night, so there was no reason for him to be out in full Hero gear without actively participating in a case of some sort. 

The Hero sighed, retracting the capture weapon back into a ready stance. "Player. Wanted for vigilantism. Destruction of property and theft. Arson. And eleven counts of murder."

"I mean, yeah, I kinda did that but— wait, m... Murder—?"

He barely got the question out before Eraserhead struck again, and once again Izuku barely dodged. "I'm s-sorry, sir! I think you've got the wrong person! Technically I'm a criminal but—"

"I'm obligated by the Hero Committee to take you into custody. I would appreciate it if you came quietly."

Another dodged blow, "But! But I've— I've never killed anyone before! I'm not Stain!"  

"Of course not," Eraserhead drawled, "Stain doesn't involve civilians."

"Wait, are you s-seriously charging me with killing—" This time he wasn't quite fast enough, and the scarf-like weapon managed to draw blood on his leg. He was kind of grateful for it, though, because what was he just about to say? Charge him with killing himself? Wow, what a great way to out himself. 

Hopefully he'd be able to get away without taking a swan dive, that would be even more damning than saying that he could respawn. 

And then he was shocked out of his thoughts as he was overtaken with a wave of emotional pain so strong that he stopped breathing for a second. 

Suddenly it was a feeling too familiar and he had to get away, he didn't care what happened he needed to leave. 

———

Aizawa wasn't entirely sure what he had expected when he found the vigilante. Certainly not for them to be running away from three small-time criminals. 

There goes most of the threatening image he had in his mind. 

Well, he supposed that he could stop the thugs first, it wouldn't take too long. A quick thwack to the back of their heads had them tumbling to the ground, unconscious. 

He had… a bad feeling about the vigilante, like something wasn't quite adding up. 

When he confronted them and listed their crimes, they had seemed confused and quite certain that they at least hadn't killed anybody. Which made no sense, because there was something very systematic about the victims. 

They were also trying and failing to keep up a confident persona. They kept stuttering, and if the way they moved was any indication, they hadn't been fighting for very long. (the bad feeling just increased) 

He was just about done with this annoying fight when they took on an exasperated tone. "Wait, are you s-seriously charging me with killing—"

His capture weapon cut them off, before they started muttering rapid-fire about something he couldn't quite hear. 

Aizawa flashed his Quirk at Player, eyes glowing red and hair rising threateningly. Their reaction was strange— they stumbled, gasping for a quick second, and wheezing out a choked-off, pained sob. 

He almost deactivated his Quirk the moment he heard it. It was so raw and desperate, and in that moment he knew without a single doubt... that this was a kid.

Before he could snag them in his capture weapon, they'd managed to stumble off the building in a decidedly suicidal fashion. "Shit—" If Player hit the ground at that angle, they were nearly guaranteed to die at this height. 

But when he had scrambled to the edge of the building, there was no sign of the vigilante, alive or otherwise. 

Aizawa sighed. This was going to be a tiring case. 

Chapter Text

Izuku was terrified of Eraserhead now. He forced himself to make quips and act brashly, but it was to hide the shaking in his hands and quiver in his voice. He didn't want to run away, not unless the Pro gave him reason to. 

However, something about all emotional control being ripped away from him…  it was a wake up call. 

He was doing things wrong. He couldn't just spend the rest of his life stealing and living in an abandoned building, acting as some masked crusader… 

If he was going to do this, it needed to be more sustainable, at the very least. His hacking skills needed a bit of work, but he bet that he could make Mikumo a more credible identity. As it was right now, his pseudonym wouldn't hold up to close inspection. 

And Izuku… borderline hated how Eraserhead treated him. Not as a vigilante, or heck, even a villain. No, he acted as though he was trying to capture a skittish animal, though he would try even harder to restrain and apprehend him every time that Izuku slipped away. 

It reminded him of his mom, oddly enough. The way she would act when he came home with bruises and cuts and burns.

But he needed to get away from him. Maybe if he started doing stuff semi-legally, he wouldn't have to deal with the Hero breathing down his back. 

———

Naomasa wishes that he could have had a peaceful morning, but oh, no— he had to be interrupted. He couldn't even have his daily dose of caffeine. 

"Sir," A uniformed officer slid up to him, an unpleasant expression on his face. "There's been—"

"Another one, right?" He dragged a hand down his face, sighing. "Same features as the others?"

"Yes."

"Please have them send me the autopsy results when it's done."

"Yes, sir."

And with that, they left, leaving him alone in the room nursing a cup of coffee. 

At least that's what he thought, until Eraserhead practically kicked in the door, somehow managing to still look bored out of his mind. Honestly, he probably was. "Detective. Give me his file."

"Excuse me?"

"The vigilante."

"Ah! Them! It might be worth noting that they somehow managed to get a hold of my personal phone number."

".... They… what…?"

"Got my phone number. Texted me locations of tied up criminals and then spammed me with tiny frog memes. Somehow they've managed to make their number impossible to block."

Aizawa took a couple seconds to breathe, kneading the space between his eyebrows in an attempt to stave off an oncoming headache. "I need his file. And anything connected to the murders."

"I'm afraid I'm not legally allowed to do that, Eraserhead." The look he got in response was enough for him to crack a grin and open a filing cabinet. "Of course, I believe I could make some copies and… I don't know. Lose them mysteriously."

———

Twenty minutes later and Shouta was leaving the station with a barely organized folder tucked into his capture weapon. He knew he could get into legal trouble if anybody found out, but he honestly didn't care. 

If anything, he could drag that insufferable detective down with him as revenge for assigning him to this bullshit case. 

He was tired of chasing around a vigilante in a strange game of cat-and-mouse, and really didn't know why he hadn't gone for his file earlier. Maybe the case would be finally over after four ridiculous months. 

Really, was the bare bones information he'd been given originally all that he was legally allowed? He'd said it before, and he'd say it again: it was bullshit. 

Clicking open the door, he mumbled greetings to a cat (Nugget, if he remembered correctly) and collapsed onto the couch, getting comfortable before flipping open the folder. There were twelve autopsy files at the forefront of the collection, along with a sticky note that simply had the words "Victim count raised to 13— autopsy not yet finished on most recent victim".

"So his kill count has risen…" He muttered to himself, peeling the note off to read the text underneath. What it revealed was a collection of photos, all bodies laid out on autopsy tables. 

The very first thing that stuck out to Shouta was how similar all of them were. Spreading out the photos on the coffee table in front of him, he couldn't help but notice how familiar they all seemed. Green hair, small build, short height…

The only things that differentiated them were the presumed causes of death. In some cases, they were burns, cuts, or firearm wounds, but the majority seemed to be from falling. Their necks were damaged badly, to the point that it seemed practiced. 

He could almost hear the puzzle shifting together in his mind, but he knew that he was missing several pieces.

Shouta sighed, neatly stacking them again before moving on. Next were the files on each victim, detailing height, weight, and other superficial things. As he went through them, he felt as though these documents were just copied and pasted, they were so similar. 

A few things caught his eye, though.

First of all… every single one of them had been identified as clinically Quirkless, having the second joint in their pinky toe. 

At that, he'd thought that perhaps Player had some sort of vendetta against the powerless portion of the population, but that didn't sit right with him. 

He didn't know why he was surprised when he read that they had the same DNA. 

The signs were all there— every identifiable trait was identical across all bodies, down to the hand-shaped burn scars across their arms and necks. How nobody else had noticed it earlier, he had no idea— surely someone had realized? 

This brought up a few more options. 

Player was after somebody with a regeneration quirk (There was, after all, a small chance of gaining a quirk from trauma, even with the second pinky joint). 

Player was after somebody with a duplication quirk. 

Player was unfortunate enough to get caught up in this whole ordeal and actually had nothing to do with it at all. 

Player was unfortunate enough to get caught up in this whole ordeal but knew exactly what was happening and could give Shouta some fucking answers. 

Shoving the autopsy reports aside, he settled down to read through report after report of criminals that had been apprehended by Player, and noting down possible quirks and motives for doing any of this at all. 

After a good hour or two of sifting through infinitely boring material, he finally reached the end of the folder, with two papers: another small collection of autopsy photos, and another file. 

Midoriya Izuku. 

Same DNA as the rest. Less scars, but by far the oldest body… almost from eight months ago. No damaged face. Intact fingerprints. Suffocated, different than all of the others. Found dead by All Might, killed by a villain he had been pursuing. 

Police had recovered a journal from his school bag that had been heavily damaged, but contained scarily accurate information about Underground Heros, their Quirks, their strengths and weaknesses… 

It had been labeled as part of a series, and yet when the police had managed to ask Midoriya Inko for the rest of the books, they were nowhere to be found. 

He could almost physically feel another piece being slotted into the puzzle. 

Player is going to give me some fucking answers, whether he's involved or not. 

His phone buzzed, a familiar peppy ringtone shocking him from his annoyed thoughts. Shouta sighs, pulling it out of his pocket and tapping on the screen. 

" SHOUTAAAAAAA! "

"Yamada, I'm in the middle of a case, please tell me that you didn't interrupt just to cry about the newest Beyoncé song—"

"That was one time, Shou! And anyways, why aren't you at Yuuei?! Don't tell me you forgot about the Entrance Exams!"

"Shit."

Chapter Text

Sorry this isn't a chapter! I have a couple reasons why I didn't post #7 but the gist of it is: it's not finished, mental health is fucking me over, and I'm losing motivation. 

I don't want to hiatus, though! I'll keep posting! Planning on posting any time I have a chapter done instead of every week so I don't rush myself. 

I really want to just cancel the whole thing but I don't want to do it when my chapter count is so low, but that leads to the problem that I don't want to put a bunch of effort in and then abandon it… 

Basically. I've reasoned myself into a corner, and have no idea what to do. Therefore: unplanned updates. 

What I hope to do with the extra time:

• Write better/longer chapters
• Plan ahead more
• Stop stressing over making everything perfect and feeling bad when I make something lackluster
• remake the whole thing separately without worrying about deadlines, ret-conning, or bad timelines

AND THAT'S THE PERFECT SEGUE! 👉🤡👉… 

What I hope to do with the remake! 

• Plan it out. Actually plan it out, start to finish, get a chapter count, all that good stuff
• Fix characterization. I don't want anyone to be OOC! (Except maybe Aizawa. Because I want. need Dadzawa) 
• Make the "normal life" To "vigilante" transition/decision less jarring
• Show Izuku's growth on-screen instead of saying, "he's like this now. Trust me, things happened and now he's like this."
• Make the chapters less messy (are they messy? They seem messy to me) / less POV transitions
• A LOT of stuff will be different in the remake! It's just a warning, but quite a few things will change. The technical bits of his quirk will be a bit different, he won't run away from home, his personality is changed quite a bit.... Etc

Chapter Text

He couldn't help the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What he was doing was going to be risky, and he had a high chance of accidentally outing himself, especially to the Principal. He…  wasn't sure if he wanted that to happen, but if Izuku was confronted he was certain he could manage to bullshit his way out. 

It would be fun if he somehow got accepted in and placed in Eraserhead's class… provided that he didn't recognize him, of course. 

Izuku couldn't do much to disguise himself, if we are being completely honest. He can't change his overall body shape, after all! So… he would settle for changing his hair color and wearing makeup to make his face a bit less recognizable as… Midoriya. Get rid of the freckles and piercingly green eyes. 

He couldn't do much more than dying his hair and wearing colored contacts, however, so it'd have to do. 

———

Izuku takes a deep breath, staring up at the looming building in front of him: Yuuei. He was here, really here , and it felt... surreal. Do I really deserve to be here? he worries to himself. Wouldn't it be insulting for a vigilante to learn in the same halls as great Heroes?

Well, it's kind of insulting for that same vigilante to give said Heroes the slip too many times to count. Guess it doesn't matter at this point, hm? A bittersweet voice whispers back to him.

It's the day of the entrance exams, and he's pretty sure this is the most nervous he's ever been. 

Just when he hikes up his backpack and steps forwards with a modicum of confidence, the world decides to fuck him over. The sensation of falling is almost comfortable to him now, and he slackens immediately, accepting his fate. 

That is, until he gets slapped on the shoulder and stops falling entirely. 

"Jeez! I'm sorry I used my quirk on you without your permission, but are you okay? You looked like you were totally ready to eat the dirt!" Izuku just blinks dumbly at the bubbly girl who had stopped his descent as she continues babbling, nudging him so that he was standing upright. "It's bad luck to trip so hopefully I stopped it before that happened!"

"My good luck ran out years ago." The words slipped past his lips without even thinking, even as he was barely processing the situation. 

The girl blinks, silent for a couple seconds before bursting into laughter. He gives her a questioning smile, but she just wheezes and taps her fingers together, releasing her quirk. "Well, hopefully you get a little extra for the exams! See you!"

And with that, she sprints off, leaving Izuku considerably more confused than when she first appeared, but less anxious. Huh. Would you look at that, pre-exam jitters gone. 

Maybe he could do this, after all. 

———

The written exam was difficult. 

He'd been staying on track with his schoolwork, and even done a bit of extra, but Izuku still doubted that he'd get in unless he got a good score on the physical. 

They were waiting for the physical to start right now, and the biggest thing on his mind was the fact that he'd seen Kacchan in the room. Obviously… he'd done his best to sit away from him. He sighs, staring off into space as his worries swirl around in his mind. 

He was utterly unprepared when a sharp voice called out, reprimanding him for not paying attention. He jolted in his seat, hands tightening around a screen that he'd reflexively summoned. Izuku jolts his hands back when he gets the barest hints of staticy shock, still not enjoying the last time he'd been electrocuted to death. 

"Sorry…" He mumbled underneath his breath, running a hand through his hair to try and calm down. The examinee, however, had already sat down and began giving Present Mic his full attention. 

Mic went on to talk a bit about the Zero-Pointers and how they were just obstacles, no need to bother with them. He wasn't quite sure how long he'd zoned out for, but suddenly everyone was up and moving. 

———

Kacchan wasn't at the same testing site, so that's one thing he doesn't have to worry about. However, he does have quite a problem in the fact that… he had little idea of what to do. Everybody was milling about at the start, waiting for some sort of signal to leave, and… 

Izuku was trying to figure out what you were supposed to do to pass the test. They had been talking about… villains? Robots? Were they working on disaster relief? Just beating up things? Heroic principles?... 

He… didn't really know, so his best bet right now was to do literally all of that at once. So… generally being helpful, fending off any attackers, limiting property damage… 

He nearly jumps out of his skin when Present Mic screams "Go!", but takes off into the exam grounds anyways. Almost immediately, he spots large, lumbering hunks of metal, and pales. 

His quirk wasn't built to deal with that. He had a physical boost, yeah, but it wasn't enough to punch through steel! And maybe he could make them disappear by attempting to cut them in half with his inventory, but that would totally reveal Player— he'd get arrested!

Izuku ducks on instinct when the other examinees leap into the fray, explosions and fires going off in every direction as the robots were destroyed. A piece of scrap metal whizzed over his head and impaled a wall behind him, and the beginnings of a plan began to appear in his mind. 

———

Aizawa had been glancing over the screens, ignoring the flashy quirks and instead focusing on the examinees who had managed to get higher amounts of points. 

They'd most likely be his newest class, after all, and assessing them beforehand would be useful. 

His gaze locked onto a screen following a blue-haired boy. Midori Mikumo. He looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place the face in his mind. 

Midori had managed to gather a decent 40 villain points. It was a bit impressive, actually, the way that he had been using broken metal poles to stab through the protective plating of the robots, effectively destroying the faux villains. 

He had also seemed to prioritize helping out others. Rescue points hadn't been assigned yet, so he couldn't guess how many he'd gotten. Any time he came across somebody struggling, he'd launch a pole like a spear and pin the robot to a nearby wall, not damaging enough to completely destroy it. There had already been three times where he'd rammed his shoulder into an examinee to move them out of the way of falling debris. 

Really, these children had to learn not to destroy every building they walked past. 

A low cackling started up, and Shouta glanced to the side, seeing the principal press a rather ominous button. 

He sunk into his scarf, resolutely deciding to just fall asleep so he wouldn't have to deal with the psychopathic rat. 

———

He had heard the Zero-Pointer before he saw it. The same was probably true for everybody else, but what he did differently was instead of running away, he immediately sprinted towards the monstrosity. 

Not his smartest move, he would admit that. 

But when he saw Bubbly Girl trip when she was running away from the robot, he just ran harder instead of turning away like he should have if he had any sense of self-preservation. 

If anime had taught him anything, it was that with enough speed you'd somehow be able to run straight up the sides of giant robots and literally defy gravity. So that's exactly what he did— planted a foot straight into its metal plating, creating a small dent, and using the foothold to jump up. 

Rinse and repeat the process, he somehow managed to reach the top before anybody had been crushed. Wiggling into its "head", he glanced around. 

The Zero-Pointer looked hopelessly complicated, at least for Izuku. He barely knew how an engine worked. He doubted he could find a weak point fast enough to stop it. 

Wait, it's a robot... I could… ? 

His screens tended to shock him if he held onto them too tight. Which was odd, because they didn't seem like they should be a physically touchable thing, but he mostly shrugged it off as a weird quirk being weird. But maybe they could give off more than static? 

He then proceeded to summon a screen and physically break it open. The luminescent blue crackled with energy, and though he really didn't want to do it, Izuku latched onto the nearest wire before grabbing onto the splintered, sparking ends of the screen. 

His vision was lit up with blue as the robot was electrocuted and all he could think was shit shit shit shit that hurts !

The mechanisms sparked, electricity shocking the system. Ever so slowly, it slowed, eventually stopping on a very unbalanced position. It was leaning forward, which wouldn't do if there was anybody in the way who could get crushed. 

He knew rather instinctively that the hunk of metal he was standing on wouldn't stay up right for much longer. Taking a deep breath, he glanced at the ground, scouting a path down. If he launched off at just the right angle, it should be enough force to tip it the other direction... 

Izuku jumped.  

Chapter Text

Oh my god I can't do this. 

Izuku had just felt a familiar sensation: his grip on his emotions lessened and left him grasping at straws, desperate to hold himself together. It had started the moment he'd let go of the broken screen, and watched it disappear in a flash of light. 

Something's wrong with my quirk. 

Luckily, it seemed that his brain didn't feel like betraying him today, as the most obvious emotion in the rolling sea of psychological pain wasn't despair or depression or anything much that resulted in tears. No, what he was feeling right now was unadulterated terror.  

It probably had something to do with the fact that he was falling from approximately a hundred feet as his quirk was acting up, with limbs that didn't quite work on account of the electricity still buzzing through them. 

If he went splat on the pavement from here, he'd be done . Not only was there the possibility of permanently dying , he'd have to make another identity because Mikumo would be legally dead and oh shit he didn't want to deal with that. 

  (Ignore the definite possibility of traumatizing any kids who saw him get splattered, he couldn't even afford to pay for his own therapy) . 

The closer he got the ground, the faster he seemed to fall, the air making his eyes water. 

Well. At least it'll be quick, hopefully. 

He closed his eyes, bracing for the inevitable jolt of pain when his flesh would meet the ground, bouncing and then flipping until it came to rest as some mangled approximation of his body. 

Instead he gets a slap in the face. 

Izuku opens his eyes, blinking his contacts back into place, and stares at the hand that had hit him. 

"... Ow?"

"Thank god, you're—" Whatever she had been planning to say was cut off as she scrambled out of the rubble and emptied her stomach on the ground. 

It was Bubbles. The same girl who'd used her quirk on him earlier. As she wiped bile from her lips, Izuku stumbled over. "'s that your… quirk drawback?"

"Ye— urp… yeah… nausea. Not… not fun."

"I… suppose I have you to thank for my body not being an uncooked pancake of meat and bone on the asphalt?"

Her face screwed up and she looked as though she was fighting down another round of sickness. "That gave me a disgustingly vivid picture of what would have happened."

"Yeah, I know. Force of habit, makes people leave me alone. You okay?"

"Yeah, I just… need a minute…"

A buzzer rang through the air, signalling the end of the test. "Ah, damn. I took up your time, I'm sorry about that. You could have gotten more points."

"Don't be! Do you think you have enough?"

Izuku sighed. "I wouldn't be too sad even if I don't get in. Honestly I'm kinda just doing this for fun. I wonder if I'll be able to get away with it."

Her head swivelled faster than Izuku thought would be healthy without a specialized quirk, and she gaped at him. "For— what— you—?!"

He just shrugged at her and turned away. His gaze locked onto an old woman weaving through the chaos and muttering about the dangers of this exam format. 

Quirk: Heal

Speeds up the natural process of the body's healing. Drains stamina, however, and might accidentally exhaust somebody so much that they die.

He blinks. Wasn't that Recovery Girl… ? 

She shuffles over to him and yanks on his arm. He winces, hissing. "Ow—"

The heroine rolls up his sleeve, inspects his arm, and frowns. "What did you do to yourself? This looks like you grabbed onto a power line..." It seemed like that wasn't the only thing worrying her, but Izuku knew about his scars. She was probably trying to figure out which were new and which were older. 

"I'll be fine, don't worry about me."

She blinks at him before hitting him over the head with her syringe. "You look like you've been run over by a bus, you're not going to just 'be fine'." She then proceeds to smack a wet kiss on his hand and drops his wrist. 

Izuku makes a face, shaking out his arm. He was feeling a bit woozy now, and was blinking dark spots out of his eyes. 

"Um. Ma'am, may I leave now…?" The heroine simply grumbled and turned away, muttering about 'reckless children' and how 'they don't even take care of themselves these days'. Izuku shrugged and decided to write it off as a frustrated old nurse being… well, frustrated. 

The exam was over now, though— so it was time to go home. He sighed, idly tapping his fingers against the sides of his thighs. Nothing to do now but wait. 

———

"Fuck," he hissed, dropping the folder of papers. Shouta stuck his injured finger in his mouth, scowling around it and glaring at the polaroids as though they had personally insulted him. Of fucking course, a paper cut has to hurt more than broken ribs or cracked femurs or literal gunshot wounds… 

He went back to scanning the plain, clinical words printed out in front of him. He was, admittedly, a bit stumped. There was something just out of his reach, an answer to something , and it infuriated him to no end. He'd resolved to tracking down Player and interrogating them, but they didn't have a habit of being active around this time— he'd just have to wait. 

In the meantime… 

The autopsy photos mocked him. Every time he glanced at them again he was violently assaulted by waves of déjà vu, as though he had seen that very person walking and alive before. He just couldn't remember… 

Shouta threads his fingers through his tangled hair, tugging a few knots out absentmindedly. It was frustrating, worrying, even— some kid was out there being hunted down, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. The nerves made him want to grit his teeth and pull his hair out. (Not healthy, he knew.) 

He just had to wait a little longer, and maybe this shitshow of a case would be a little closer to being resolved. 

Chapter Text

Izuku was the first to admit he wasn't the best at staying alive. It was a goddamn miracle he hadn't kicked his own bucket during the Entrance Exam, and he shuddered to imagine what would have happened if he did. 

After his first few deaths, he started being less scared of the Void. At first, he only ever died when somebody attacked him. Most often with Quirks, knives, and even a gun one time (it was rather novel, given how strictly guns were regulated). 

Usually, he'd bled out. The bullet wound hadn't been bad enough to kill him, but he knew that he couldn't escape from his pursuer with an injury like that… so he waited until they cornered him and then punched his own ticket with a blade he'd swiped off of them. 

The look on their face… retrospectively, it was kind of funny. In the moment… he'd just felt bad. 

Eventually he'd started killing himself just to escape from people. He knew almost certainly that he'd always be able to come back, and just had to be careful about being seen when respawning. 

He barely ever had the time to hide any corpses, however, and the best he could do was hide their identity. Destroy fingerprints, faces, and remove incriminating evidence from his clothes or gear he carried around, and he was set. 

As he'd passed the Level 10 mark, he'd gained access to an Inventory. Remarkably useful, not only for quick stowaways of his mask and weapons, but also for carrying around any bodies he'd managed to grab before he made a quick getaway. 

There wasn't a whole bunch of space, but he made it work. Every other week he chose a random forest to bury the collection. More and more, he was thanking his odd Quirk for keeping his emotions in check. 

He wouldn't have been able to deal with the sheer quantity of corpses he had to bury otherwise. 

Anyways, he had been staring at his ceiling for the past 15 minutes, and was getting tired of it. 

He had to go somewhere and move. 

The wait had turned out to be much more anxiety-inducing than he had expected. He'd tried distracting himself with the internet, and that didn't work. 

Oh, sure , he scoffed at himself. Beat up criminals on a daily basis and get borderline neurotic over exam results. Exactly the performance you'd expect from a middle-school dropout. 

But the space in his inventory was slowly shrinking, and so was his patience. 

And so, off to his graves he went. 

———

He was in the middle of one of his aptly-named Corpse Runs (have to make it amusing somehow, even if your amusing is disgustingly morbid) when he felt a prickling on the back of his neck. He had just enough time to consider literally throwing himself in the grave he was currently digging before there was cloth wrapping around his torso. 

"Player," A familiar voice growled, "care to explain why you've been killing the exact same person for the past eight months?"

He was very glad that he had been wearing his mask for this particular errand. 

"Actually!" Izuku squeaked, wiggling in the weapons' rather stiff grip, "It's q-quite the long story an-and! I'd re-really rather not have to expl-plain the fact that I've t-technically done nothing murder-y? And maybe just des-esecrated a few, um, few corpses?"

"Still illegal. Talk." 

"H-How did you even find me?!" He stutters out, deciding to thrash violently to attempt escape. 

"Instinct ."

A swift shake had Izuku struggling to tell left from right, and his vision swam. "Urp…  think I'm gonna… throw up… "

"Don't."

"Oh…  o-oh no, you've caused severe brain tr-trauma, please let me go s-so I can seek medical h-help?"

"That's almost worse than the pet goldfish excuse."

“E-excuse me! I’ll have you know that all p-pets, fish or not, are sti-still living creatures and theref-fore deserve res-respect and–” A swift shake shut him up quickly. Izuku sighed, slumping in his grip as his apparent emotional state did a 180. "Would you b-believe me if I said I'm not involved a-at all and that every-ryone would honestly be happ-appier if you just… l-left it alone?" 

(He was being rather truthful– his mom would be heartbroken if she found out, and he wasn’t really hurting anyone, and… well, actually, he could see how the police thought he’d been killing himself, though. It wasn’t exactly as they were wrong, their perception was just a bit off about the whole situation, was it even murder if— ah, fuck. His focus was slipping).

"That gives me contradictory information so you're obviously not being truthful."

"Oops." Izuku stiffened, his phone buzzing with a notification. "Oh. I'm really, rea-really sorry! I h-have to go!" And Eraserhead swears that his capture weapon disappears for a second, flickering back into existence almost as fast. By that time, however, Player had already disappeared silently into the surrounding woods, leaving Shouta alone in the forest. 

It was only at that point where he realized that what Player had been doing before he got there was digging a hole. It was just a circular pit, several feet deep and could probably break somebody's bones if they fell in. A pit trap? No, why would the kid do that? He'd be inclined to say the hole reminded him of a grave, but… 

He might need to tell the detective that the vigilante had possibly killed more than previously believed. 

———

Izuku wheezed, doing his best to force down the bile at the back of his throat. That was not fun, and the beginnings of a panic attack weren't helping him calm down in the slightest. 

So. Eraserhead.

Yeah, he still terrifies Izuku, but what can he say? The man knew how to be threatening, even if he’d shook him around like a can of spray paint before you used it (was that professional? Izuku couldn’t help but feel like the man was being less than professional). 

But he can’t help but be… impressed, Izuku supposed, for either following him to his graves or for just somehow guessing where he’d be.He’s not sure which one it was, though.

What he is sure about is that, frankly? He sincerely hopes that if he gets into Yuuei, his class won’t be 1-A.

Chapter Text

Izuku (Mikumo, now, he had to remember that he was Mikumo now) stared up at the huge door to Class 1-A and sighed. This was certainly… an issue. (He hadn’t meant to actually make it in. After all, this put him in possibly the most compromising position possible.) He had gone over the results multiple times, cursing his luck, himself, and the staff at the school simultaneously. 

After all, he had seen who had made it into second place.

Izuku, with a whopping 85 points (rescue points from the 0-pointer disaster had been... reduced because of the extreme risks he had taken, which was simply not even counting his undocumented injuries) had beaten Bakugou Katsuki by eight points. With all seriousness, he wasn’t certain if he’d survive past being seen by Bakugou. He could only really hope that he was in 1-B instead. Unfortunately, the muffled shouting from inside the classroom didn’t exactly spell out exemplary news.

But, well, he couldn’t just sit here and wait for some divine force to make him go inside, could he?

“Hey!”

Izuku promptly lost all semblance of balance and fell over, away from the loud noise.

“Oh… sorry! You seem like you do that a lot, are you alright…?” Staring worriedly down at him was the girl who had kept him from landing flat on his face at the entrance exam.

It took a few seconds, but, (as per usual) his brain-to-mouth filter vanished like Bakugou’s attempts at friendship after his ‘diagnosis’. “Bubbles!” he exclaimed, pointing at her. There were a few seconds of awkward silence before his face went bright red and he started rambling apologies. “Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I just, recognized you? I’m sorry, I, uh, you’re kinda hyper but not exactly and seem pretty happy too plus your quirk, ah, i think makes stuff float so I kind of just accidentally gave you a name in my head–” the corners of her lips were curling up, and she snorted out a short laugh before a neutral voice cut her off.

“Is something wrong here?”

Izuku (Mikumo! Call yourself Mikumo!) froze at the bland tone, before peering around the girl’s legs and making direct eye contact with… a caterpillar with a human face? “Um. N-no, sir, I. Uh. no.”

“Hmm. Well. Get inside.” 

He scrabbled to stand up again, and shoved the door open just as the yells inside escalate to all-out screaming. 

“I demand that you stop! As I have said, your behavior is not fit for such an exemplary institution as Yuuei! I cannot believe that the great Heroes who control admissions would ever allow someone with such vile behavior enter these halls!”

“ I’ll do whatever the fucking hell I want , Glasses, and ain’t shit you can do to stop me!”

“Take your feet off of that desk! ”

“Up yours, asshole! You’re not the goddamned teacher, shitass! ”

Izuku could barely hear the man behind him sigh, unzip his sleeping bag, stand up, and lean so that he could see into the room. “ I am.” The undignified screeches of the two boys cut off as they both turned to see the speaker, spontaneous caramel-sweet smoke crackling from Bakugou’s palms. His stomach churns when the smell drifts over to him. Of course. Of course he was here.

Bakugou’s smooth complexion (damn, he wanted to know his skincare routine) immediately imitated that of a ghost the second his gaze zeroed in on Izuku (Mikumo) , who immediately averted his gaze. Fortunately he also adopted the voice of one, as in: he just sat there, silently, without doing or saying anything else that would be irreversibly incriminating for Izuku.

He could practically feel the droll stare of his homeroom teacher (Eraserhead oh god oh fuck, god dammit what why when did he commit a sin great enough to deserve this) drilling into the top of his skull as he hunched even further down into himself to maybe-possibly-hopefully-unlikely get away from his gaze. To his great relief, (and possibly Erasers’ unending, cynical amusement) the attention on him died down as he shuffled into the classroom and fell into the closest chair, which may have been a mistake considering it was directly behind Bakugou.

Eraserhead (to reiterate: Eraserhead! Fuck!!) trudged into the classroom, causing Uraraka to follow Izuku’s example and find a seat to claim. When the bleak man had made it to the front of the room, he sighed once more and swept his gaze over the room.

“I’m your homeroom teacher. You may call me Aizawa-sensei. And I won’t tolerate any more petty screaming matches in my classroom. You’re teenagers, not kindergarteners . I expect you to act like the Heroes-in-Training that you all are and will be.” His eyes narrowed at both Bakugou and the tall, blue-haired kid (oh god thats why he recognized both voices that was the boy who’d yelled at him during the entrance exam), as he looked at all of them. “Am I clear?”

There was a general “Yes, Sensei” which echoed throughout the room, though Izuku could tell Bakugou had just slid his feet off his desk and hunched over silently.

Eraserhead- (no, no, call him Aizawa-Sensei) nodded in acknowledgement. “Get changed into your P.E. outfits,” he continued, pulling a thick sheaf of paper out of his tracksuit (how had that fit in there?) and beginning to flip through it.  “And get down to Field A.”

“But Sensei,” Uraraka piped up, had stretched into the air, “Won’t we miss the orientation speech?”

“Not like it ever changes,” he shrugs. “Besides there’s more efficient ways to use your time than to listen to somebody yammering at you about school pride and insignificant achievements. Now hurry up.”

The class slowly stood up, looking at each other uncertainly, before Izuku pushed back his chair and walked out the door with the intent to wander until he found the boys’ changing rooms.

The others trailed out the door after him. Well, he thought, a tad bit bemused, he's certainly just as intimidating as I thought he'd be. 

Chapter Text

Well. 

He couldn't find the changing rooms, so he just ducked into the first restroom he found, hopped into a stall, and pulled on his PE uniform ( the school had sent them all standardized uniforms after they sent in their measurements for costumes ). 

As he stood in front of the smudged mirror above the sinks, Izuku stared numbly at the prominent scars on his arms. 

His right side wasn't so bad. There's a few nasty looking old gashes peeking out of the sleeve, but they're mostly hidden. His left, though… 

There is a decidedly large hand-looking burn right on his elbow. It's big and obvious and not pleasant to see. The others are not much better, considering there are a ton of jagged marks across both his wrists and forearms, mostly from when he'd first started using tall buildings to escape people hunting for him ( it had taken a while to stop throwing his arms in front of him to break his fall. The only thing that broke were his bones, and not even the right ones— they just lead to a messier death ) 

They’re definitely not the most low-key of injuries. The others might see his off-color and puckered skin and not think much beyond “ oh wow he has scars, that’s awesome! ” but then they might ask for stories about them and even if he got past that then Aizawa-Sensei would see them too and get suspicious and oh, fuck, god this is n ot going well for him–

He’s jarred out of his thoughts when someone opens the door.

They stare at each other, for a couple minutes. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and really, really shouldn’t be anything other than that but he has to hold himself back from laughing until he cries because sometimes that just happens to him. The other kid (because he doesn’t have a name for them, they’re just some other kid from another year or department or both) blinks at him, presumably a bit weirded out, and just slides into a restroom stall to take care of their business.

Clumsily, he pulls a tube of concealer out of his bag and covers the scars with a reasonable amount, including touching up on the slash across his eye and cheek, and smushing down his hair so that maybe the violent starburst on his scalp is hidden. 

His fingers ghost over the lichtenberg scars across the backs of his hands, the only ones he hadn't bothered to cover up, and. 

And…

And he thinks, as his hands shake while he stares at himself in the mirror with his scars all prettily hidden, it could almost be from Before, if only his hair wasn’t temporarily dyed blue and his irises were red from contacts. It’s like staring a ghost in the eyes, only made weirder that it’s the ghost of himself. (He can only imagine how terrified Bakugou was a couple minutes ago, now).

He caps the concealer, packs up his messy bag, and goes back to wandering the halls in order to find Field A.

–––

He’d finally found the field, after a solid several minutes running around like a headless chicken trying to A) find a door to the outside and B) find his actual destination. Unfortunately, he’s the last there (Or… fortunately? He’s still toying with the idea of getting himself expelled on purpose).

When Aizawa-Sensei sees him join the group, his already disapproving expression somehow worsens. “You all took far too long to change and arrive. Those lost minutes could be the difference between a life saved or a life lost in a real danger.”

Izuku sheepishly raises a hand, to offer an explanation, and when Sensei’s eyes focus on him he takes it as a go-ahead. “I, uh… You didn’t tell us where the field was… sir… or, um. Or the changing rooms.”

Eraserhead sighs, sinking his face ever-deeper into his capture weapon. There’s a few seconds of silence before he says, “Bakugou. Stand in the circle.” Bakugou, grumbling, does what Aizawa bids him to, and catches a ball thrown to him shortly after. “What was your distance in middle school.” 

“Sixty-seven meters.”

“Throw that as far as possible. Do anything you want, just don’t leave the circle..”

A feral grin splits across his face, perhaps for the first time that day returning some color to his cheeks. The blond cracks his knuckles, winds up, and–

“DIE!”

A deafening explosion echoes across the field, and the ball is nearly impossible to see as it rockets off. Aizawa flips a screen in his hands around to display his score to the class: 764 meters. The class erupts with chatter.

Whoa, That’s amazing! / I can’t wait to use my quirk! / This is gonna be so much fun! 

It’s the last comment that seems to have made his expression pinch. “Fun? They think...” He hisses through his teeth, at a volume that makes Izuku think that maybe it wasn’t meant to be heard. “You think…” He says again (louder, this time), “That this will be fun? Let me tell you something, kids– Being a hero isn’t all fun. It’s ruthless and painful and you think you can be one?” He chuckles, then. It’s something a bit broken and sad. “Alright then. How about this for fun: The one with the lowest score after all of the tests… will be expelled.”

Another uproar, but this time it isn’t nearly as cheery, and between the clamouring noise and a sudden thought ( Oh thank the heavens about maybe I’m not as cursed as I thought I was, I’ve just got to miserably fail this) , he barely hears a faint “On the first day?!” It was Uraraka who’d shouted, eyes wide and looking rather worried, “That’s not fair at all!”

Aizawa seems to be about to say something, but it’s Bakugou who beats him to it, voice low and threatening. “There’s not anything in life that’s fuckin’ fair, extra, and if you came here looking for a nice comfy ride to fame and fortune, you’re gonna be damn well disappointed,” he hisses venomously. “If any of you– any damn one of you – think that you belong here when you aren’t even willing to put in the work, I’ll convince you myself that you should’ve never entered that classroom to begin with .”

Izuku blinks. That’s… not like Bakugou. Not the threats, no, that's par for the course, but… he sounds so… angry. ( Wait no, that’s normal to…) well, something about him stepping up and saying a whole speech seems just… out of place.

He shakes off the sudden uncomfort, the feeling of not right not right not right pulling at his skin and it helps, just a little bit, when Bakugou growls and stomps out of the circle to rejoin the class. “Alright, then,” Aizawa huffs as he trudges over to a short sprinting track at the edge of the field. “The first test will be the 50-meter dash. Let’s see who comes out on top.”

–––

The tests pass quickly, with each of Izuku’s classmates finding some unique or creative solution to one or more of them. He, himself, doesn’t try all that hard. After all he doesn’t want to stay at Yuuei ( Definitely not. Nope. Totally, completely true ) and this just gives him a convenient (and technically legal) excuse to drop– ahem, be kicked out. 

He makes it to the ball throw with perhaps the lowest score ever seen on one of these tests, and it’s obvious that Aizawa isn’t impressed with him. In fact, it’s possible that the man might just throw him personally over the very fancy walls of Yuuei because of the insult that doing anything than his mindlessly panicked best during the tests is.

As he steps up last to the ball throw, he nervously scuffs the dirt below him. Could he disqualify himself by stepping outside the circle? Or, wait no, that would just be suspicious… More than my other mediocre performances…  

As the ball is tossed to him, his mind is whirling. How far should he throw? Should he pretend to have a lot of trouble with it, or should he purposefully act like he doesn’t care? What would be a believably bad score? What were the odds of getting murdered by Eraserhead once this whole thing was over with (he’s gonna expel me from life, he whispers to himself)? As he winds up for his throw, steps back just a bit to maybe lower his score a bit more, and resolutely does not think about the possibility of gaining new scars purely from someone’s gaze, he can’t help but feel like this is an incredibly important moment. He doesn’t know why.

As his arm swings forwards and the ball leaves his hand, he feels a sudden dizziness sweep through him. It’s odd and also now he’s got a headache and was it always so hard to breathe and why can’t he see through his right eye and what’s happening. What’s happening he can’t breathe and he can’t see and his limbs feel like they’re buzzing the sudden aches are so painful, and he coughs trying to maybe clear whatever is keeping him from getting oxygen and red splatters against the ground. It’s cold against his cheek, the ground, and he wonders vaguely when he laid down. Or maybe he fell over? Someone is grabbing at his arms and he hopes that they aren’t going to hurt him because that wouldn’t feel very nice. Something taps at his cheek and he’s moved upward to sit and there’s buzzing in his ears but beyond that he can hear screaming, somewhere in the background and someone says something about Recovery Girl, and he thinks that she’s pretty cool. She’s pretty nice, she tried to heal him after the exam even if it didn't do much because all the things it could have healed were already stitched together because of his quirk and it helped him, sometimes, when he got hurt a lot and he liked it for that even if he didn’t like the darkness that happened beforehand. 

He grasps at the thought, turning it over in his mind like a puzzle to be solved and something briefly clicks as he thinks, fuck, I wonder if they’ll believe that I just had low blood sugar, and his eyes flutter close and suddenly the thoughts just stop.

Chapter Text

He had thought that today would be his normal schtick– get up, chug some coffee, go to work, expel a couple of potential-less wannabes, go on patrol, collapse in bed, rinse and repeat. 

Evidently he had thought wrong, Shouta realized, staring blankly towards the Yuuei gates where red lights repeatedly flashed atop a white van, and he tried not to think of one of his new students being loaded into it. There’s blood on his lips, he realizes faintly, and hopes he won’t get sick from something as stupid as that.

The siren screams.

–––

Shouta sighed, leaning up against a wall in his safety-yellow sleeping bag. Start of the school year was always the worst, so many aggravating children and incessant coworkers… As he inched his way across the miraculously spotless floors, his mind wandered. He didn’t quite know why he still worked here, but it was something to do ( savehimsavehimsavehim his mind screams, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop ). Upon arriving at the 1-A door, he is greeted with… a girl with a bob-cut looming over a blue-haired boy on the floor who is spouting off increasingly frantic apologies. Great, his inner psyche bemoans, Already someone threatening their classmates.  

“Is something wrong here?”

The kid on the floor stares at him like a deer in headlights. “Um. N-no, sir, I. Uh. no.”

Likely story. Should keep an eye on that. “Hmm. Well. Get inside.” 

The boy stumbles as he hastens to stand up, slipping a couple times and having to use the wall for support. As he unsteadily shoves open the doors, the yelling inside the classroom escalates even further, somehow. Unfortunate that Shouta couldn’t stop it earlier.

“I demand that you stop! As I have said, your behavior is not fit for such an exemplary institution as Yuuei! I cannot believe that the great Heroes who control admissions would ever allow someone with such vile behavior enter these halls!”

“ I’ll do whatever the fucking hell I want , Glasses, and ain’t shit you can do to stop me!”

“Take your feet off of that desk! ”

“Up yours, asshole! You’re not the goddamned teacher, shitass! ”

He sighs, wriggling out of his bag and leaning over the kid so he can see who’ll probably be expelled by the end of the day. “ I am,” he huffs out, shocking the children into behaving for a few seconds. The spiky-haired blond loses almost all of his fight the moment his eyes lock onto the meek child in front of Shouta. Interesting.

As everyone settles down and he moves into the room, he does his little beginning-of-the-year speech and extracts the pile of papers about his new students, putting names to faces. He can already tell he’ll leave the school with a migraine.

–––

They took half an hour to find their way outside.

Unacceptable.

As he waits another three minutes for the straggler to join the group (Midori Mikumo, says the packet of information he was given. Minor strength quirk. Reckless.) he fumes about how taking this long in a real emergency would get people killed ( nothimnothimnonononoplease ) and when he finally shows up, he makes a frustratingly decent point. He hadn’t told them where exactly to go, and the school for some asinine reason never gave out maps, and he couldn’t even tell them that they should have been able to find the destination without any direction, because it was literally their first (possibly last) day and he wasn’t cruel.  

Still, he can’t let any of these hell-children (because yes– he can already tell. It’s a sixth sense) sense weakness lest they go for his neck, so he doesn’t respond to Hell Child #2 and instead turns to Hell Child #1, telling him to throw a ball as far as possible and no, he doesn’t care how much their quirk abuses it because that's literally the whole point of quirk assessments (plus Yuuei definitely has a large enough budget to buy a few more balls with trackers in them).

Hell Child #1 ( Bakugou Katsuki. Sweats explosions. Aggressive.) takes absolute glee in blasting the poor equipment apart. He has a feeling that it would have gone even further if the ball was more resilient.

But the brief period of interest in the blond’s quirk is cut short when he hears someone say that this will be fun. “Fun? They think...” he has watched classmates die this is not fun these kids should not think this is fun they are going to get hurt very soon they are going to get hurt because they don’t know. His words are acid. “You think that this will be fun? Let me tell you something, kids– Being a hero isn’t all fun. It’s ruthless and painful and you think that you can be one?” He chuckles, then. Something cracks in his heart for a second, before he covers it up again with duct tape and rage. “Alright then. How about this for fun: The one with the lowest score after all of the tests… will be expelled.”

That gets a reaction. “On the first day?!” The girl who’d (probably) been harassing Hell Child #2 cries out. “That’s not fair at all!” He’s about to say something cutting, something about how unfair the world is and nobody gets a say in what’s fair or not and tough shit– but Hell Child #1 practically snarls at her.

“There’s not anything in life that’s fuckin’ fair, extra, and if you came here looking for a nice comfy ride to fame and fortune, you’re gonna be damn well disappointed,” he hisses venomously. “If any of you– any damn one of you – think that you belong here when you aren’t even willing to put in the work, I’ll convince you myself that you should’ve never entered that classroom to begin with .”

There’s a threat in there, clear as day, and while Shouta sends a warning look his way he doesn’t say anything to refute it, because someone had to say it. He rolls his shoulders and walks to the far end of the field. 

The first couple of tests were alright. Not many creative quirk uses except for Yaoyorozu ( Creation of items. Soft-spoken) , but almost everyone used theirs and did their damn best, except for Midori. He frowns. (There’s also a little pervert who he doesn’t like much, but still has a glimmer of potential. Hopefully he can train that nasty streak out of him.)

When the ball throw came, he’d decided on what he was going to do. If Midori wasn’t going to take this seriously… well, he’d show him exactly how unprepared he was for anything even vaguely resembling hero work.

As the others took their turn and their scores were logged, he noted how Midori seemed to be fidgeting, hidden by the others. And finally it was the Hell Child’s turn. He wound up (with absolutely horrendous form, it almost made him wince) and right before the ball flew, Shouta’s quirk snapped on, hair flipping upwards and eyes glowing.

The next few minutes were a special little hell for him.

He watched, horrified, as the kid wobbled in place for a couple seconds, a wheezing gasp ripping its way out of his throat as he tipped over and collapsed on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. There was a horrific, wet cough, and Shouta rushed over to the boy to see what had gone wrong, to figure out what was happening and there was blood right next to him– and not from a head wound, no, there was crimson staining his lips and had his quirk caused internal bleeding?! He pulls on Midori’s arm, trying to get some sort of reaction but all that greets him is a delirious whine and some more horrible choking, and his quirk has deactivated by now but he’s got the sinking feeling that it’s too little too late.

Shouta barks at the kid with the engine quirk, Iida, to get Recovery Girl and gives him some rushed directions. He nodded despite the panicked screams of his classmates and sprinted away.

Another kid shakily asked if they should call 119, and he nods because why had he not thought of that sooner. He keeps tapping on Midori’s cheek and talking to him, trying to keep him conscious for at least until someone that can help more than him arrives because he doesn’t know what will happen if he blacks out now. 

Faint sirens sound off in the distance, and Shouta curses, feeling Midori begin to go limp in his arms. “Come on– come on, kid, Midori, Midori stay awake stay awake the ambulance is almost here, okay? You have to stay awake until then, I swear to god you better stay awake or I’ll expel you, I’ll do it I swear I will– stay awake, kid, stay awake!” 

And Midori’s eyes flutter shut, his shaking breaths sputter out and Shouta curses, laying him down flat on the ground and getting into position for CPR. Ribs snap under his weight and he follows the rhythm, 30 compressions 2 breaths 120 beats per minute, and there’s someone at the gate asking to be let in and it opens automatically, Chiyo hasn’t arrived yet though and Shouta just keeps going, keeps doing compressions until gentle hands pull him away and the kid is moved onto a cloth gurney.

Shouta watches, helpless, as he’s taken away and only one thought loops through his mind– it’smyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfau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There’s concealer smudged on his fingers.

Chapter Text

Fluorescent lights always made such an aggravating noise. 

Izuku blinks blankly at the gray ceiling above him, trying to ignore the buzzing. He could not recognize this place. He did not, in fact, recognize this place. Did he have a concussion again? What had he been doing before he passed out? Ummm… something about … He squints at the ceiling, trying to bring his hazy memories back into focus. He remembers... dizziness, and panic. Something about low blood sugar, maybe? A lot of loud noise, too, and he had definitely been suffocating…

Yuuei.

It all snaps into horrifying clarity.

He had died in front of nineteen 15-ish-year-olds and the underground pro hero Eraserhead, not to mention there was probably video of it happening and also every single person who had handled his body on the way to wherever he was plus whoever happened to be looking out the windows during class had all seen his dead body.

This was a problem.

This was a problem, because when people die as oddly as he had, people investigate the death.

This was a problem, because when people need to investigate deaths there is usually an autopsy done but also people are contacted to properly identify the body.

This was a problem, because he had not had anyone listed as a legal guardian or emergency contact or anyone who could properly identify him in his fake paperwork, and that was sketchy as hell. He was technically an emancipated minor, but. Still.

I can fix this! He thinks blurrily to himself, I. I can fix this. I. How can I fix this? It’s, um. This. Hm. Will not be easy to fix.

Izuku slowly tilts his head sideways to stare listlessly up at the table next to him, his old body lying deathly still beneath the sheet that covered it. He was on the floor, he realized now, and vaguely was disgusted at the fact that he was laying on a floor in a room which’s primary purpose was to store and dissect dead bodies.

Ew. He could be lying in human brain juice, or something.

He gingerly sits up, pats himself down to find himself dry of any substances of unknown origin. There was, however, a small bit of… blood? Yeah, it was probably blood on his gym uniform collar. He wiped his mouth, and that came away glistening red too. It was never fun to clean up afterwards. He supposes it’s nice his quirk goes through all the trouble to replicate his clothes and bags and stuff, but it can’t really differentiate between non-harmful things. So. Blood, which he’s got to scrub off his chin and mouth and clothes as soon as possible.

It is not the time to be thinking about hygiene , he realizes. Now is the time to be thinking about Escape!

…

He. Did not have any escape plans.

Izuku blinks, once again, blankly at the room surrounding him, and eyes the door. This had never happened to him before, waking up from the void in what must be a morgue. And. Well. What was he supposed to do? Just walk out? Because from the concrete and the vague, oppressive feeling, he guessed he was underground.. And people don’t exactly put windows facing dirt into walls.

Hm.

Yeah. He. Did not particularly care, right now. Izuku, after standing up and inching across the room, yanked open the door and promptly fell over, bashing his head against the concrete flooring. “Ah… I came here t, to have a good ti-ime, and hones’ly I’m jus’... jus’ feelin’ sso attacked! Right nh-ow!” he mumbled in the general direction of the ceiling, before propping himself upright again and stumbling out.

After a rather anxiety-inducing (yet uneventful) trip through the cold and mostly empty hallways, he emerges from the building. It’s dusky outside, approaching sundown, and he definitely won’t be able to catch a bus in decent time if he doesn’t go now. So he takes a deep breath, and walks away from the morgue, hoping against all odds that the place doesn’t have cameras.

(who is he kidding, he has terrible luck)

–––

He doesn’t want to go to school.

No– no, wait, actually, he’s kinda realized by now that he actually really wants to go to school, it’s just, he, he can’t, not without a decent explanation. He can’t just… show up to school for no reason! After dying there! Who does that?  

(him, maybe, his traitorous mind throws back).

But after a good night’s sleep and a couple hours of blank staring at the wall, he’s decided to more or less continue on as he always has: ignoring his issues and lying shamelessly if it’s pointed out. And it’s this train of thought that has him hovering over a, uh, borrowed phone (hey, to the winner goes the spoils, right? Murder should at least be repaid with the taking of valuable items) and staring at a draft email to Aizawa-Sensei, hoping he wouldn’t back out.

He sighs. Better just bite the bullet, really. 

–––

Shouta stared blankly at the computer monitor in front of him, before slowly standing up and grabbing a bottle of whiskey tucked away in the shadowy, cobweb-filled recesses of his pantry, far away from where Hizashi would ever think to look for it, for fear of encountering a spider.

After a solid 15 minutes of nursing a glass, he figured he was sufficiently buzzed to read the email notification that was blinking innocently on the screen from a clearly school-issued account.

God. This better be from who he suspected it was, because only two people in class had those initials, and he doubted the tiny purple one would have the balls to send him something after he’d been caught being a little pervy bastard today. ( he has potential, he reminds himself).

Hello, Sensei.

I am one of your 1-A students. I apologize so much that I have missed class today and yesterday. I had meant to send you an email yesterday with the provided address that came with the admittance papers– You see, I’ve been sick with a really nasty fever for about a week (so I stayed at home, didn’t want to spread it around) and wanted to gain access to any classwork that was meant for yesterday or today. I have the draft email from yesterday, but I’m not sure why it didn’t send? I suspect that the wifi in my apartment went down or something, I apologize sincerely for not giving you proper notice of me not attending classes. I ask for any material I missed to be sent back to me, if you have the time.

Thank you so much, 

Midori Mikumo. 

He reached for another glass. 

Chapter Text

Aizawa-sensei was staring at him. Really hard. Yeesh, he’ll get a migraine if he focuses any more. I don’t think normal human eyes are able to take that much strain. His gaze sharpens even more. “I assure you, Midori, my eyes will be perfectly fine,” darn! He’d thought that he’d kicked his muttering habit! “However, you still need to answer my question.”

Izuku shifted. “Ah, yeah, sensei. Um, what I’d said in my email was correct, I was pretty lucid when I wrote the second one- uh, the one you received? I don’t think I would have been physically able to get to Yuuei two days ago, let alone participate in a test like you said we’d have to. O-oh! Will I have to do that..? Who am I kidding of course I will. … Why did you want to talk to me, again?” 

The Pro-Hero sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have reason to suspect a villain snuck onto campus for some reason by posing as you. At one point I used my quirk on them and they appear to have had an... incredibly adverse reaction to it.”

Internally, Izuku was scream-sobbing, but outwardly he perked up. “O-oh! What happened? Er, What is your quirk, again…?”

“I attempted to erase their quirk and they died.”

He didn’t have to fake the wince. “Ah. That. Makes sense.”

Aizawa’s focus somehow multiplied even further. “ Explain. ”

“W-well– assuming that the villain wasn’t just, um, a shapeshifter of some type, or created illusions, and instead did something more along the lines of cloning, then… yeah, getting my quirk e-erased would– would probably kill me.” Izuku just watched the horrified realization spreading across Aizawa’s face. “See, when I was younger, I broke a bone, c-can’t really remember which one? B-but at the hospital I kept breaking stuff by accident with my quirk, y’know, strengthening. So they put me on some pretty minor su-suppressants without the permission of my mom ‘cos I was doing so much property damage and I started coughing up blood, and also might have almost died because I think it was, um, a lot of blood. My memory’s pretty fuzzy because of the blood loss and also it happened when I was, like, seven? Getting my quirk flat out erased would do, ah, way more damage. Apparently my quirk strengthens my inside bits, too, and actually does a lot of work with that… it’d kinda be like making the walls of my organs paper thin if it wasn’t there. I actually thought it was put in my medical record but...maybe not? .... Should I talk to Recovery Girl about this?”

Aizawa was just… staring at him.

It was really tempting to laugh, actually, especially considering that he’d just made that excuse up right now because like the dumbass he is he can’t think ahead.

“‘Should you talk to Recovery Girl’, he says.” The man echoed, tone as flat as his ass, not that Izuku would ever willingly say that out loud. Or admit to thinking it.  “Midori, in the future I suggest you mention any medical issue that may result in a major, life-threatening event taking place to a trained health professional as soon as possible so that said major, life-threatening event simply does not happen.”  

Izuku giggled, nervous. “A… ahahah… ha. Ha. Yes okay i’ll do that thank you please let me leave now?” The response he was given was an irritated groan, before his teacher dug around in his capture weapon and pulled out a packet of papers, and really, how does he do that? It’s like he’s got an inventory of his own, and held it out to Izuku.

“Your classwork for yesterday, a written summary of the Battle Trials done yesterday to hopefully at least let you learn a bit about what practical work you missed, and a get-well card from the more enthusiastic of your classmates, who’ll undoubtedly be crawling all over you with questions the moment you walk into the same room as them. Now,” he continued, once the papers had successfully changed hands, “I hope I don’t have to tell you, but I will expel you if you don’t measure up to expectations. And I live up to my promises, don’t doubt that. Got it?”

One raised eyebrow was all he needed to do for Izuku to vigorously nod. “Good. Now get your ass up to the health office and tell Recovery Girl about your health concerns and anything else that might need to be added to your file for your safety. I don’t have room for self-sacrificial, or, god forbid, oblivious idiots in my class. You better not leave anything out, or when I find out I will expel you.” And with that, he abruptly turned around and stalked away, like some sort of lanky shadow.

Izuku couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever been Severus Snape for Halloween. He certainly already had the irritated stride, and the dark clothing. If he’d been wearing looser clothes there probably would have been an impressive flair in that turn.

He shook himself out of that train of thought and turned the opposite direction to find his way to the health offices.

Wait a second.

“AIZAWA-SENSEI! I DON’T KNOW WHERE THE HEALTH OFFICE IS!.... OR THE CLASSROOM! THERE’S NO MAPS!”

Izuku set off running after his teacher.

Chapter Text

Up at the health office, Izuku sheepishly opened the door before him, grinning apologetically to Aizawa who had walked him up. Inside, a short woman was attending to a blonde third year who’d managed to somehow get a gash from his ankle to just below his knee, never mind that it was before twelve o’clock. Was he a hero course student? Izuku couldn’t think of any other course that could lead to getting injured so early in the morning– no, wait, he could. Support Course would probably be as likely as a Hero student, from what he knew about it and the… attitudes of the students. 

The kid perks up at the sound of the door opening, twisting towards him, and the grin he gives Izuku makes him wince. How does that not split his face in half?

“Ahaha! I have no clue what you mean! What brings you here, kouhai?”

Ah. he must have spoken out loud again. As he steps through the doorway he responds, “Uhm… my homeroom teacher let me know that there may be some missing information on my medical file? So, uh, here to get that fixed…”

Recovery Girl presses a wet kiss onto the kids’ leg, and Izuku watches in faintly morbid fascination as it stitches itself back together. He wonders if he looks like that when his body respawns. “Oh, dear, hopefully it isn’t anything too bad,” she huffs, “but it’s good that you’re coming to me so soon in the school year, show’s you’ve got good sense.”

The upperclassman looks a little concerned. “Well, good luck with that. I’ve got a class to get back to, though! Goodbye!” He then proceeds to fall through the goddamn floor , leaving a sad, crumpled pile of clothes behind.

Izuku blinks, bewildered. Recovery Girl just scoffs and pokes through the pile of clothes with her stylized cane. Apparently finding whatever she was looking for, she grumbles, “At least he was wearing the proper underwear this time,” (and, what? What kind of school is this, Izuku wonders, before realizing that he signed up to become a child soldier and really had no room to complain) before heading to the computer she had set up next to one of the beds in the small clinic. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Er… Midori Mikumo.”

She freezes, hands hovering over the keyboard. “I’m sorry, you said your name was Midori?”

Ah. He can see where this is going. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I was under the impression that you’d… suffered cardiac arrest yesterday. Why are you in school?” Wow. What a wonderful, sensitive way to say ‘how are you not dead or in a hospital right now’. He’d definitely give her props for her bedside manner. 

“Oh, that wasn’t. Uh. Me.” he said flippantly, instead of commenting on something along the theme of his earlier thoughts. “Aizawa-sensei guesses that it was somebody with a cloning quirk? Or a shapeshifter, or something. I’ve been bedridden for the better part of a week with a fever, so I couldn’t have gotten to school… or reasonably participated in a, uh, ‘quirk apprehension test’... but that’s not, er, why I’m here, though.”

Izuku watches as a dubious glance is thrown at the underground hero slumping behind him in the doorway, and he really can’t fault her. It is rather far-fetched. He’s just glad that he didn’t have to be the one to suggest a villain using his visage to sneak onsite, and instead that conclusion was drawn without his input. He assumes that Eraserhead nods behind him or something, because she seems to accept what he said without any further prompting.

“Apparently,” he drawls, “what happened on Sunday was an accurate representation of what would have occurred if he were to actually have his quirk suppressed.” 

Izuku watched, both amused and guilty about the way that Recovery Girl proceeded to have a full-body twitch.

“And nobody had considered putting that on his medical file?”

There’s a moment of silence in the room before Izuku realized that both of the Pro-Heroes were staring at him for an answer. “O-Oh! Um… It’s. It really wasn’t ever my… problem when it came up? I haven’t needed anything of the sort to be mentioned since I was in my first year of Elementary cos’ that’s when we realized something was wrong, so I’d assumed my mom had gotten it figured out, and if not then surely it would have been obvious enough to the doctors that had to figure out why I was coughing up blood that maybe it was important enough to go on my file but still it’s entirely possible that just never happened but I’m not sure why?”

After a couple seconds, the blank, unresponsive expression on her face scrunched up, and she hissed something beneath her breath, before swiftly turning back to the screen in front of her, and typing in his name with surprisingly quick fingers. “What are the specifics of your suppression issues, do you know?”

“Well… not really? To just be safe I really shouldn’t ever be put on any, no matter how weak, considering I got underdosed that one time and it was enough to, uh, be fairly life-threatening,” he sighs, wondering how in the hell he’s going to keep his story together. Unfortunately, he keeps throwing layers upon layers of lies together... it would come back to bite him eventually. Oh well, problem for future-Izuku! 

There was a long, long, long several seconds of silence, only punctuated by clicks as Recovery Girl pulled up his medical file and the occasional ‘hmm’ as her eyebrows slowly drew together. Evidently it really wasn’t satisfactory, which he supposed made sense considering that the whole thing was fabricated by him and he was an amateur at just about everything, including fake documents. She doesn’t say anything about it, though, and instead types in a note and closes down the computer.

“I’m going to have to get you a… I suppose something like an allergy bracelet, Midori, to let anyone who needs to know that you can’t be put on suppressants. Truthfully, you should have gotten one much earlier– but you can’t be to blame for that, considering you’re a minor.”

Izuku shifted, a frown pulling at his lips. “I don’t know if I can do that, ma’am– money for me is, ah, a little tight.”

She snorted, hopped off her chair, and walked over to bop him lightly on the head with her cane. “UA will handle the costs, boy– never use that as an excuse to not do something that is medically important!” Suddenly, she tilted her head up, staring straight at Aizawa. “And you, ” she hissed, pointing at him accusingly, “you will not use your quirk as an intimidation tactic with this class– the risks of you accidentally hitting this boy with it outweigh all possible bonuses to keeping your class from becoming unruly little brats, am I understood? ”

As he side-eyes the two adults, Izuku watches Aizawa-sensei freeze, and then nod incredibly slowly.

“Good. I’ll get that bracelet tomorrow, Midori, come by before class to collect it. Now shoo! I’ve got paperwork to do!” Recovery Girl barks at them, crowding them out.

As the door behind them slams shut, Izuku blinks, stunned.

Well. That just happened.